New Clarity owner and his dumb questions

Yes, you should remove the original fabric ones. I don't think the plastic pins should be too tall for the tuxmats. They weren't for the OEM all weather mats in my car or for the Weathertech mats I helped put in another Clarity. Someone will have to weigh in on the tuxmat for further verification.

 

There are no dumb questions. Ask away.

 

I'll first answer based on my value for "HV Charge". Occasionally I will drive somewhere expecting to be able to charge at the destination and find that I cannot. I don't like driving the Clarity with a fully depleted battery, just believe it leads to high engine RPM and potential loss of acceleration power if needed. I will use HV charge to build the battery back up to as much as 50%, then go back to HV mode. I will then use the last of the battery before I reach my next expected place to recharge. I have also used HV Charge due to forgetting to push the HV charge button after stopping during a long highway trip and depleting the battery below what I wanted to maintain for the duration of the HV portion of the trip. Also, I can see that on a really long HV trip, the battery charge could be reduced enough to want to use HV Charge to replenish as well, since the HV mode will let the charge level creep down a little each time it is engaged, so after multiple stops you could lose enough charge to want to bring it back up some. Beyond this, there are some here that find that electricity can at times be more expensive than gasoline over significant periods of time. They will use HV charge to replenish the battery if it gets to a lower than desired state (or just drive all the time in HV Charge). Since the battery will stop charging at something less than 60%, either method would work fine (either occasionally switching to HV Charge from HV or just driving all the time in HV Charge mode).

 

The tux mats just sit on top of the plastic pins. You do need to removed the original mats. The tux mats are a very snug fit so I didn’t bother installing the pins that came with the mats.

 

Here's a haptic/visual aid and some homework.

When you're on a long drive using HV to conserve your battery charge, you may have to stop for gas or other reasons. When you get back in your car, it's easy to just press the D button and take off without remembering to press HV. About 30 miles later, you look at your instrument panel and see you've been inadvertently driving in EV mode. You're then unhappy that you've used much of the charge you've been protecting. You weigh the option of selecting HV CHARGE to recover the charge you lost. However, when you stopped you had more than 12 bars of charge on your 20-bar High-Voltage Battery Charge Level Gauge on the left side of the Driver Information Interface. As @Robert_Alabama explained, HV CHARGE will not continue charging the battery when you get to 60% (12/20 bars) of a full charge, so you're SOL. You probably don't want to stop and plug in your Clarity just to get back to more than 12 bars.

What you need is a way to remind yourself to press HV before you proceed on your way. What I use is a paper button-overlay that is shaped like the D button, but which reads HV instead of D. Just print this JPEG file, cut out the overlay, place it over the D button, and tape one edge to hold it in place.

For your homework, memorize this chart that illustrates the various modes the miraculous Clarity PHEV uses to minimize the use of gasoline and electricity. The bottom-right illustration attempts to explain why the Clarity might start its engine when you use regen braking while the battery is still fully charged. It is one of the more mysterious and difficult to explain aspects of the Clarity PHEV.

Another somewhat controversial illustration in my chart concerns Engine Drive mode, when the Clarity is cruising at speeds over 45 mph and the Engine Drive clutch closes to connect the engine through what is essentially a 1-speed transmission to the wheels. Honda says the Clarity PHEV can generate 212 hp, but then they say 121 hp is available in under battery power only (EV Drive mode) and 181 hp is available when the engine kicks in to generate more electricity (Hybrid Drive mode). That leaves only the third drive mode, Engine Drive mode. Is 212 hp possible in Engine Drive mode? Honda won't say, but many on this forum have theories about how Honda's claim of 212 hp can be justified. To me, it sure doesn't feel like 212 hp is available in Engine Drive mode.

I should note that you can't directly select EV Mode, Hybrid Mode, or Engine Drive Mode. Those are the underlying modes the Clarity uses to implement ECON Mode, NORMAL Mode, SPORT Mode, HV and HV CHARGE.

See, there are no dumb questions, just more (and likely irrelevant) answers than you were looking for.

 

Also, some, mostly European, cities have created or will create “Green Zones” where any vehicle entering with a fossil fuel burning engine running will be charged a fee. So the solution would be to charge the batteries along the way, if necessary, in order to enter the sanctum on battery power.

My experience on 3, 700 mile trips with 3-4 stops each, is a maximum loss of 3-4 bars on the battery gauge. Yes, if you forget to put the car in the appropriate mode, there will be a price to pay.

It is possible to add a bar or two to the battery gauge when the SOC is above 60%, by switching to EV on a long downhill run. Then switch back to HV to reset at the higher SOC.

 

It's been a while, but I think I just slid the needle end of the center lock into and under the bare carpet (OEM mats removed). Do you mean the front driver's pin (sharp metal needle fold over in the narrow U shape) that provides the locking part in the center of the mat? Maybe you didn't get the "hook" part all the way into the carpet through to the other side, and down below the lower surface of the carpet?

 

The HondaLink app doesn't use Bluetooth - your phone must be connected to Honda's servers over the internet. In the US, Honda uses the ATT network - I don't know what is uses in Ontario - but I live in an area that has almost no ATT signal so the app is mostly useless. For preconditioning the cabin I generally use the fob.

Also, re. "charge mode" - Clarity works best as a hybrid when the battery is at least half full. The little ICE engine is overtaxed when it's called upon to provide most of the power to move the heavy vehicle. "Charge Mode" is best used when you're on a long drive, the battery is depleted and you're traveling on long, level roadways - so running full-time to generate extra power to charge the battery doesn't stress the ICE.

 

The Clarity only has a 7 gallon fuel tank. The low fuel light comes on at 1 gallon of remaining fuel. If the battery is completely depleted, that means there is just 40 miles to get to the nearest gas station. On a long trip, I find I have less anxiety if I have 20 or so miles of EV range. This allows me to comfortably wait until the low fuel light comes on before gassing up. Also, the engine generator can only provide the equivalent of 60 hp to the 181 hp drive motor. If the battery is completely depleted, then on a long upgrade in the mountains, that 60 hp will be about all the power which will be available. Driving a loaded 2 ton vehicle up a steep grade with just 60 hp is no fun.

Also, on side streets, off the highway, the car is more pleasant in EV mode since there is no engine noise. Whereas on the highway, the engine noise is masked by road and wind noise. On a long trip, it is nice to be able to drive around off the highway in EV mode.

 

The wifi is on the tablet, but some of the functionality is run off of the controller/radio box, which is behind the dash. I doubt it has a way to access the wifi in the tablet, just its own cellular data connection to Honda

 

No, that is NOT what I mean. The Honda telematics system uses a cellular data link and GPS to connect to the ATT cloud via the ATT network of cellular antennas. Honda has contracted with ATT in the US to provide this service. When you open the HondaLink app on your phone, your phone connects to Honda's cloud servers over your wifi or cellular data system. Honda's servers then connect to your car's telematics system.

 

Press the "lock" button then press the "fan" button and hold it. The car will blink once when you press "lock" - it will blink three times, pause, and blink three more times while you hold the "fan" button. At that point your L2 EVSE should indicate that charging has begun showing that the car is drawing power from the grid and not from its own battery.

NOTE: Using the fob to initiate preconditioning will also work when the car is not attached to an EVSE - it will just pull the power it needs directly from the battery.

 

It blinks only the left turn-signal? I use this feature frequently. I press the lock button and watch both taillights flash once. Then I press and hold the fan-blade button and watch both taillights flash 1 time, flash 3 times, then flash 3 times again. After a few seconds, the resistance heater warms up and the fan comes on to start warming the interior. I can turn off the pre-conditioning by pressing the fan-blade button again. The tail-lights flash once. If I don't get out to my Clarity within 30 minutes, pre-conditioning shuts off by itself.

My Clarity terminates pre-conditioning when I open the driver's door, but I can still unlock the car without stopping pre-conditioning. When I come out to my Clarity, I insert my hand into the driver-side door handle to unlock the car, but do not pull the door handle. That keeps the pre-conditioning going so I can open the rear door and start loading stuff for my trip into the back seat.

Note that if the trunk or any door is slightly ajar, the car will not lock and pre-conditioning cannot begin.

 

It's all about one's perspective - and point-of-view.

 

On preconditioning, you also have to realize that you cannot force it to cool or heat unless it’s within a certain temperature range (thanks to @jdonalds for first finding this out). And it may take a few minutes to turn on depending on if your using a cellular connection with the Honda Link app instead of the fob, so be patient. It always bugs me that with my garage in the 50s F and the outside temp freezing, that I can’t precondition and have a toasty warm car to have the outbound trip with no range draining cabin heat.
Attached is the chart describing the temperature ranges that preconditioning works in.
Note also that you don’t get to pick what temp or how long preconditioning works. It times out after 30 min.

On Honda Link problems/usage, remember that it only works when BOTH the car and phone with the app have a sufficient cellular signal with an AT&T carrier. Also, remember that it’s offered to us as a free service, probably due more to all the information Honda is collecting from us rather than any altruistic desire in their corporate heart. As a result, you can understand how Honda designed this system as frugally as possible. For example, HL communicates by cellular data packet and does not include voice features like OnStar in order to reduce bandwidth expenses. In a similar vein, you’ll notice that Honda Link does not update in real time in order to reduce the number of transmissions and cost. You’ll see this in the fact that Honda Link updates the EV charge in 15% increments only (85, 70, 55, 40, etc).
So Honda Link doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but on the other hand it’s absolutely free (and I hate monthly subscription costs that seem trivial at first, but add up significantly over time).